Charges dropped in Hampton murder case

HAMPTON — With pivotal witnesses no longer cooperating, murder and related charges were dropped last week against a Hampton man accused in the city's first homicide of 2010.

Phillip Michael Bryant, 23, had been charged with gunning down 24-year-old Johnny Mendell Avery at the Lincoln Park apartments on March 13.

Bryant had faced first-degree murder, two gun charges and three counts of forging public documents. Police said he signed a false name on three police documents during the investigation.

Officers responded just after 9 p.m. to a parking lot at the Lincoln Park apartment, on LaSalle Avenue, after receiving reports of someone being shot. Avery, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, was transported to Riverside Regional Medical Center, where he died the next morning.

At the time of Bryant's arrest two days later, police said the men — who knew each other — were arguing when Bryant pulled out a gun and shot Avery.

Hampton Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Bane said he was forced to drop the case because several people who initially gave statements to police about the shooting are no longer willing to cooperate. The charges can be brought back if more evidence is found.

"They told me that they just weren't going to do it," Bane said. "They were scared or just didn't want to get involved."

Without the witnesses, Bane said, prosecutors could merely present evidence that Bryant was acting strangely and was in the area — but no hard evidence that he shot Avery. "They weren't going to get me past probable cause," Bane said. "It would have been an uphill battle."

One key prosecution witness, Bane said, was a man who initially told police he spoke by phone with Bryant shortly after the shooting. But that witness said he wasn't going to cooperate in the case, Bane said.

Prosecutors lost leverage against that witness, Bane said, because a separate charge against him of carrying a gun as a convicted felon had to be dropped for technical reasons — because the original New York felony conviction didn't contain the judge's signature.

Bane said, however, that he didn't think that witness was going to cooperate -- with or without the gun charge pending against him.

The prosecutor said he is likely to press forward with the forgery charges, since those don't depend on the witnesses' testimony. But he said he's still considering how best to go about that.

Bane said he's also planning to talk with federal prosecutors about possibly taking over the case. At this point, he added, they might have more mechanisms to get the reluctant witnesses to talk.